An evening with the stars: a contemplation of the heavens

              An Evening With the Stars
A Contemplation of The Heavens

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Remarkable Moon photograph showing craters and ramparts casting shadows.

An Illustrated Lecture Given by
B. R. Baumgardt
More than One Thousand Times



An Evening with the Stars
An Introduction to the Contemplation and Study of the Wonders of the Heavens.
A remarkable presentation and understandable interpretation of recent celestial photography, the results of the greatest telescopes in existence.


Detail from first photograph taken of the Moon with the giant telescope on Mount Wilson, Cal.


AN Evening With the Stars is Mr. Baumgardt's best-known lecture.  It is one of the foremost popular lectures on the American platform.  Ever new, always revised and kept down to date, abreast with the most recent explorations of the starry universe with the world's greatest telescopes, and illustrated with the latest achievements in celestial photography; presented in language so simple that even a child can understand. it conveys to the mind graphically, poetically what everybody ought to know about the wonders of the starry universe.  The lecture is a celestial journey, far more wonderful than that of Aladdin on the enchanted carpet; it is a journey to the frontiers of our universe, billions of miles away in the bosom of immeasurable space.  On the wings of science we traverse the circuit of the universe, and are then brought safely back again to our earth.



A Total Eclipse of the Sun.  It would be difficult to indicate any two minutes in the world's history for which so many scientific preparations were made, and in which the public was more keenly interested, than in the Total Elipse of Jan. 24, 1925.  Was it worth the while?  It was.  For a few moments some twenty million human beings forgot their earthly concerns to receive a direct manifestation of the immensity of nature; and its operations under the dominion of immutable law.


THE PURPOSE of this lecture is to reveal upon the screen the remarkable achievements in recent celestial photography and to interpret in a popular and understandable way their bearing on some of the greatest problems that have yet engaged the attention of thinking men.  Repeated visits to the leading astronomical observatories in

A remarkable combination photograph of a section of the sun,


The Planet Mars, showing the much-debated canals, as seen by R. J. Trumpler with the great Lick telescope the night of September 7, 1924, when the planet came within thiry-four million miles of the Earth—nearer than it had been or will be for a century to come.  The canals are plainly seen and are not due to optical illusion.  This, however, does not prove them to be artificial.  Astronomers are inclined to believe they owe their existence to some unknown but natural cause.

this country and Europe have resulted in an unrivaled collection of celestial views.  For illustration: the Moon is brought within less than fifty miles of the Earth, enabling us to travel there in the midst of strange and sterile scenery, in which the thoughtful mind reads a signal prophecy of the fate that must eventually overtake our own Earth.


Barnard's extraordinary photograph of one of the richest parts of the Milky Way, where the stars are so numerous that they blend their light into a luminous haze.  Yet each individual star is a sun and no doubt surrounded by worlds.  The distance of the nearest star is 25,000,000,000,000 of miles.




Dark rifts or lanes in the Milky Way, due either to absence of stars or to opaque matter intervening between us and the stellar background.  Are we here approaching the confines of the universe?  This has been suspected, but who is bold enough to indicate limits to the archipeligo of the starry system?  The nebulae in this photograph are so faint that they cannot be seen with the aid of the most powerful telescope.  But they do manifest themselves on the photographic plate.


It is, however, in disclosing otherwise invisible objects in the heavens, billions and billions of miles away, on the frontiers of the universe, that the subject becomes sublime.  Suns and worlds are weighed in the balance.  Giant stars like Antares and Betelgeux, exceeding our own sun in volume thirty million times; globular star clusters on the verge of creation; remote, yet distinct, cosmic units that stagger the imagination; mysterious and fantastic spiral nebulæ, in which the discerning eye thinks it sees the very processes of genesis; dark rifts, coal sacks, in the densest part of the Milky Way, where we may possibly be penetrating into the infinite void behind the universe: —all these combine into a transcendent exexhition of the infinite scale upon which sidereal transformation is taking place and in the midst of which stand forth the eternity of matter, the undiminished perpetuity of force, and, dominating all, the supremacy of law in the universe.

[At the close of one of Sir David Gill's lectures on astronomy, Sir William Thompson, who was present, with unaffected enthusiasm declared that he had been taken on a journey far more wonderful than that of Aladdin on the enchanted carpet; that he had been carried not only to the remotest star, billions of miles away, but that on the wings of science he had been permitted to circumnavigate the universe, and had then been brought safely back to the earth.  And, the best of it all was that it was true.]




Fascinated by Celestial Views
(From The Lincoln Daily Star)
An audience that filled and overflowed the mammoth Auditorium last night sat enthralled, almost motionless, held by the age-old spell of the stars and the mystery of the infinite; their attention transfixed and feelings almost stunned by Mr. Baumgardt's poetic and fascinating interpretation of what is said to be the most wonderful collection of celestial negatives in existence, the result of recent photography of the heavens at the leading astro-physical observatories throughout the world.

As the views flashed one by one upon the screen, their meaning and the wonderful processes by which they were obtained were lucidly and grippingly explained by a man whom the audience came to see, was not only a lecturer, but a scientist deep in love with his subject.  Again and again the bare pictures themselves drew bursts of applause.

Space and inadequacy of the naked eye vanished through the triumphs of modern celestial photography.  The heavens were examined in minutiae, only as it would be the privilege of some rapt scientist, hidden away in some mountain capping observatory, to see them.  Intimate touch with the very processes of creation and glimpses out between a solid wall of stars into space and infinity itself, showing as jet black sacks against the brilliant background, gave the lecture touches of weird unreality.

The climax of the lecture, as it is also the present climax in the discovery of the heavens, came when the spiral nebulae in the various constellations were seen as shown by the unfailing eye of the camera after an exposure of three nights through the largest telescope.  Here the great twisting streams of matter are seen whipped off from a common center, following the spiral form, the line of least resistance through a resisting medium.  The mind is irresistibly led to believe that here we are at last permitted to behold the birth of suns and worlds.

Mr. Baumgardt's course of eleven lectures has been a great success in every way, and of the greatest educational value to all who were fortunate in attending them.



A Remarkable Return Record


National Geographic Society, Washington, D, C.
18 lectures


Tremont Temple Courses, Boston
21 lectures


Carnegie Hall, New York
31 lectures


University of Chicago Extension
24 lectures


Kansas City University Extension Society
12 lectures


University of California Extension
32 lectures


American University Extension, Philadelphia
86 lectures


League for Political Education, New York
49 lectures


Belasco Theater Sunday Courses, Washington, D. C.
19 lectures


Columbia University, Inst. of Arts and Sciences, New York
21 lectures


American Institute, New York City
26 lectures


Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y.
92 lectures


Academy of Sciences and Arts, Pittsburgh, Pa.
24 lectures


Goodwyn Institute, Memphis, Tenn.
33 lectures


Academy of Scieuces, Los Angeles
24 lectures


The Scottish Rite, Los Angeles
71 lectures





B. R. Baumgardt.  (From Who's Who in America?)
Of English and Swedish extraction.  Educated in Sweden; Special studies in history, astronomy and mathematics.  Secretary Oregon Academy of Sciences 1892; President S. California Academy of Sciences.  1901-1905; Chairman of Astronomical and Mathematical Section 1895-1905.  Extensive traveler and explorer.  Staff lecturer: at Brooklyn Institute; American Institute of New York; League for Political Education of New York; Academy of Sciences and Arts of Pittsburgh; National Geographic Society of Washington; Institute of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University; Goodwyn Institute, Memphis Tenn. Clubs: Transportation Club, New York City; Hon. Member University Club of Los Angeles


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A Word from the Managers
FEW MEN today on the lecture platform are better known or in greater demand than Mr. Baumgardt.  His reëngagements year after year on the leading platforms, educational institutions and clubs throughout the land testify to his popularity with all kinds of audiences.  I regard him as one of the most useful and desirable lecturers now available, says the Director of the League for Political Education in New York City.  His remarkable skill as a lecturer, combined with an inexhaustible fund of information, keeps him in continual demand in this country and abroad, says Columbia University Arts and Sciences Bulletin.  A complete list of Mr. Baumgardt's lectures, illustrated and unillustrated, is given by title on next page.  All bear on one theme, The Intellectual Development of Man.  No matter what the subject, educational travel, history, science, art, Mr. Baumgardt's remarkable memory and ability to marshal facts, make it interesting and educational.

Mr. Baumgardt is an unique personality on the lecture platform.  We unhesitatingly commend him and his lectures.



Opinions

New York City, The American Institute
Your wonderful lecture on the Stars was a remarkable presentation of the latest achievements in celestial photography.  Indeed, your other lectures were quite as good.  In each and all your forceful and astonishing power to marshall facts and convey deep thoughts made a lasting impression.—Dr. J. W. Bartlett, Director.



Yerkes Observatory, From Prof. E. E. Barnard
I was greatly interested in Mr. Baumgardt's lecture on 'The Frontiers of the Universe,' and was very much pleased to see the splendid appreciation shown by the large audience in Milwaukee.  I think I have never seen more exquisitely colored lantern slides than those he showed in the terrestrial prologue.  All the astronomical slides were of the best and latest.



Washington, D. C., The Washington Times
The genius of Baumgardt was seen at its best last night when he closed his lecture course with 'The Latest from the Heavens.'  The genesis of suns and worlds was illustrated with celestial photographs that were miracles of science and were wonderfully told by this remarkable man, who has proved to Washington audiences that he stands without a peer in his chosen field.



Washington, D. C., The Washington Herald

In conveying to his audiences the inspiration he himself has found in the study of the heavens and the amazing triumphs of human science, Mr. Baumgardt has achieved something more than success; he has made of his lecture an actual work of art.  He so cunningly marshals facts and plays so skillfully on the minds and sentiments of his hearers, that the effect is almost stunning.  It seems as if he had left no room for improvement.—
The Herald.



Washington, D. C., The Washington Star
It would seem a difficult task to create a new impression in the lecture field, yet this is precisely what Mr. Baumgardt has done by adding to the elements of instruction and entertainment the charm of poetic interpretation.  His enthusiasm is contagious, his personality peculiarly attractive, and his delivery modulated to a nicety, which shows him to be the possessor of histrionic abilities.  He is a man of the rarest intellectual attainments.





The B. R. Baumgardt Lectures

*† The Romance of Human Progress
*† Egypt and the Dawn of Civilization
*† Athens and the Golden Age of Pericles
† America's Part in Human Progress
* Municipal and Civic Art Centers, Ancient and Modern
† Guesses at the Future of Civilization
† Present Day World Problems
* An Evening with the Stars
† The Symbolism of the Universe
* Earthquakes and Volcanoes
† Darwin and the Theory of Evolution
† Einstein and the Theory of Relativity
† Atoms and Electrons; the Ultimate Reality
† The Poetry of Science and Religion
* Venice, the City of Golden Dreams
* The Italian Lakes and Riviera
* Florence in the Days of the Medici
* Rome; Ancient, Medieval and Modern
* The Vatican and its Art Treasures
* Pompeii, the City of the Dead
* Sicily, the Enchanted Isle
*† Spain, The Alhambra, and Moorish Civilization
* Vienna and Budapest
† The Life and Aims of Richard Wagner
* Constantinople, Queen of the East
* Jerusalem and the Hills of Judea
* London, the World's Metropolis
* The English Lake District
* Shakespeare and Shakespeare's England
* Scotland in Song and Story
* Ireland and the Irish
* The Mountains and Valleys of Switzerland
* The Fjords of Norway; Land of the Midnight Sun
* Sweden, the Land of Sunlit Nights
* Paris, the Historic City
* The French Revolution
*†Napoleon, Conqueror and Captive of the Earth
*† Joan of Are, the Maid of France
* La Touraine and the Chateaux of France
* Brave Little Holland
* Castles and Legends of the Rhine
* Crucified Russia; the Slav, the Dreamer
* California, from Shasta to Mexico
* The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River
* The Yellowstone National Park
* The Hawaiian Islands

* Illustrated with lantern views.

† Not illustrated.

*† Either way

Note on lantern views.  The remarkable slides in the illustrated lectures, with their unrivaled coloring (the art of Mrs. B. R. Baumgardt), should not be confounded with ordinary slides.  They bear direct upon the subject and are seldom introduced for effect.

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